SC Dismisses Bilkis Bano’s Plea against Release of Rape & Murder Convicts from Jail

New Delhi: Supreme Court on Saturday dismissed the review petition filed by Gujarat riot’s gang rape survivor Bilkis Bano against the remission of life sentences of 11 rape and murder convicts. Bilkis Bano had challenged the Supreme Court’s May 13 verdict which had held that remission of the convicts who raped her should be considered as per the policy existing at the time of conviction in the State where the crime was actually committed, that is Gujarat.

Bilkis Bano was gang-raped during the 2002 Gujarat riots and her three-year-old daughter and 11 others were killed by a mob in the Dahod district of Gujarat.

Gujarat government had granted remission of jail sentence to 11 convicts who had gang raped Bilkis Bano and murdered her family members during the riots. The convicts serving life imprisonment were released by the Gujarat government ahead of the assembly polls in the State.

Bano’s plea against the top court’s May 13 judgment, had demanded that the remission policy of the State of Maharashtra should apply in this case, instead of the 1992 remission policy of Gujarat since the trial in the case had happened in Maharashtra.

The Supreme Court had on, May 13, ruled that remission of the convicts in the case should be considered as per the policy existing at the time of conviction in the State where the crime was actually committed.